Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals
by Saori Runa Dempsey
Summary: The fruits of a very bored writer who watches Eps 1-4 over and over again non-stop. Marshall X Mary. Ch 7: "Motherhood is a beautiful thing. Nothing is greater then watching a mother with her children...or their fierce ability to protect them."
1. Part I: The Keeper's Assessment & Notes

**A series of babblings inspired by my constant re-running of my IPS Season 1 DVDs. These will be my first works for this fandom, so I suppose you can consider this my introduction work. As if it weren't clear enough, I am a total Marshall X Mary nutter. Do be warned, however, that Brandi, Jinx, and even Raph at times tend to aggravate me (mostly Jinx though after that pisser of a finale for season 1), and my tone when including them is biased towards it. Other then that, I do try and keep them in character. Please enjoy and give me some feedback!**

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_**Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter One**

_The Keeper's Assessment and Notes_

The key to keeping your exotic animal is assessment. Know when they are happy. Know when they are sad. Know when they are angry. And, above all, know when they are about to eat you and _get out of their way_. Do all this, as well as manage to keep it safe from the world (or the world safe from it), and you are ready to permanently keep one in your life.

Mary is one such animal. She is as feral as a lioness and capable of being as affectionate as the common tabby, purring and rubbing against his leg (or other such parts of his body) when she pleased. It was enough to give anyone else whiplash, but Marshall Mann had been a Keeper of the exotic Mary Shannon for the better part of 4 years now.

At present, as he assessed the mood surrounding her, she was prowling like a predator, tensed to lunge at any given moment, and pacing a hole in his living room carpet at an impressive pace. He was fortunate to have an old deaf couple as his only neighbors, and the rest were mostly transients, moving in and out at such intervals that the volume of his music during these times didn't really bother anyone. Some might say he bought this particular home for this reason alone, but that would be an entirely false accusation.

The best route to take, in situations such as these, was to _listen._ His exotic lioness was angry, practically quivering in her desire to tear something to shreds, and he had no aspirations to be it. So he sat back, listened, and held up an Oreo every so often when it seemed to be in need of something to gnaw on.

Preferably not his new throw pillows. Or his head.

"It was stupid to begin with," she ranted, stomping the ground to punctuate this revelation every couple of steps hard enough that he wondered if his sister up in Colorado could feel the tremors like an earthquake aftershock. He had an older brother too, over in Nevada, but that seemed a little too far for her stomp to reach. 2 states over? Nah. Perhaps he could call his parents later to see if they'd felt anything in Santa Fe. They were only an hour away Northeast…

"Are you even listening to me Marshall?!"

Like a recorder, he played back dutifully in somewhat of a droning voice, "It was stupid to begin with. All we had was sex, nothing more. What was I thinking when I said I'd marry him? It was-"

"OK!" she exclaimed, slapping her hand over his mouth even as he continued talking behind her hand with a grin. "So you were listening. But your head was a hundred miles away. What gives?"

"71 miles actually, give or take. Did you know that-"

"Never mind!" Mary eased down, her hackles settling slightly as she gave him that knowingly exasperated look only a best friend could get away with. "So do you mind?"

"_Right this way, mademoiselle."_ He smiled even despite her dark look, sounding very much like Lumiẻre in Beauty and the Beast. "My home is yours, and I, but your humble _serviteur._"

"Doofus," she grumbled, but with a smile, and he knew his exotic cat of a partner was OK…for the moment. She would be OK and recover by morning, but right now, she was hurting, and he felt like strangling the ones responsible.

In fairness, it had probably been all innocent like Raph had apparently tried to explain to her before she peeled out of her house in her ancient probe and to his. Lord knows Marshall had seen his own brother do worse to his then-girlfriends back in high school. Kissing. Necking. Groping. It had pissed him off at the time, being a sensitive 16 year old catching his brother necking with _HIS _girlfriend, but it made Marshall amused and more then a little relieved now in hindsight. One had sapped his brother for all he was worth. The other had given him…well…nothing no self-respecting college sophomore would admit to getting from his younger's brother's ex-girlfriend.

It was an amusing point of their yearly family get together now.

Raph and Brandi had just kissed, but Mary was not him. She was not tightly bound in the way his family was and had trust issues surrounding those close enough to hurt her. That one kiss had effectively slammed an iron wall in between her and her sister, as well as completely severed what little hope Raph had of ever getting Mary to open up to him. By instinct, it also meant she was building walls in front of him and Jinx as well, but Marshall was right there, fighting to keep it from getting more then a foot off the ground with him. Jinx had finalized hers by taking Brandi's side, telling Mary she was over-reacting, and otherwise favoring the younger daughter as she often did – right or wrong – whether she would admit to it or not.

His beautiful, fiery Mary was shutting herself off from everyone…except him. Because he wasn't letting her, sneaking away with each brick she placed between them without looking. When she stopped, confused as to why she couldn't get that needed distance between her and him, she would eye him as if it was his fault (guilty), and he would merely give her his same placid smile and unending patience until she resumed her attempts and, eventually, gave up entirely.

_Just tell me what you need._

What she needed was a shower, which he ceded to her with an exaggerated bow, and to not have to deal with the ones who'd hurt her. Again. They always hurt her, Marshall mused with an irritated twitch, but they were family. You couldn't choose your family. And as much as he was sure she wanted to tell them to _get out, out, OUT _of her home_, _Marshall also knew she clung to her father's parting words with an irrational tenacity.

_Take care of them for me._

"_FUCK!"_

"Mary?" One word, her name, and his tone conveyed all he wanted to say as he knocked on the locked bathroom door.

"I'm fine," she ground out, agitated, and he imagined a tigress, pacing anxiously with her hackles raised. _Tread with caution._ "I forgot to grab something clean to sleep in."

"Shirt on the towel rack," he reminded her. "It wasn't hanging there just for show."

She might've said thank you, but that could've been his imagination. When he was satisfied that she was changing, he walked to his room, falling face down into his bed with a sigh.

He didn't move when the mattress shifted either.

"Marshall?" She shook him, and he rolled his head to look up at her through sleep-lidded eyes. "Aren't _you_ going to change?"

Change. Right. He opened his dresser and grabbed the closest pair of pants – Pepe le Pew ones that made Mary snort when she saw them – before eyeing her pointedly. "Turn around?"

The devil was in her eyes and a very predatory look was on her face as she kicked back, smirking. "What, Prudence? You don't have anything I haven't seen on anyone else."

_I know._ Thinking about it irritated him. "Well you haven't seen _mine_." She didn't move. Neither did he.

After a five minute standstill, Mary finally gave in, turning herself around to face his window with a huffed, "Fine, Prudence. There. Now change already so we can sleep."

He turned his back to her and was chucking his boxers into his dirty laundry basket when she spoke next, and with an undeniable smirk in her tone.

"I can still see your reflection though." A laugh, free and very much Mary filled the room as he yanked his pants up and spun around to glare at her. "Nice dimple."

_It is the Keeper's job to protect the exotic animal from the world and the world from it. What you must realize, however, is that it leaves no one to protect __**you**__ from it, regardless of home tame it may seem at times. _

_Show it your back at your own risk._

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_**A/N: And that concludes part 1. Presumably, this is a 10 chapter thing. It is possible to consider them stand alone pieces, but they run together in the order of Marshall X Mary's progressing relationship. So was it satisfactory? Obviously, this has no real plot once so ever and is the product of my fangirlish-ness surrounding Marshall, his relationship with Mary, and the re-watching of IPS S1 Eps 1-4 over and over and over…**_

_**So please, leave me a review and tell me what you think.**_

_**~SRDempsey**_


	2. Part II: Observed Behaviors

**I'm back~! I'm so HAPPY to see so much feedback! It blows my mind. That and an impromptu replay of **_**"Coyote Ugly"**_** inspired me to finish this chapter quicker then I normally would. I hope you enjoy it.**

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Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Two**

_Observed Behaviors_

The First Rule to understanding an animal is that they _own_ you. You do not own them. You are permitted into their presence and privy to observations only they and God are otherwise aware of at their discretion. But it is key, as their Keeper, that you realize the most important part of the job description.

_You have absolutely no say in the matter at ALL._

Marshall had the distinct pleasure of observing some particularly intriguing mannerisms on a fine Tuesday afternoon, keeping his mouth firmly shut lest he break out from ear to ear in a grin that would incur the wrath of his fierce tigress.

She moved like a wild dancer – with purpose and an untamable grace she was blissfully unaware of having. Mary _stalked_, if he could classify it as such, in a slow circle with the woman who'd been checking him out on the train station's platform.

In reality, her arms were crossed under her chest and she glared at her, sending the woman flittering away after a 5 minute stare-off.

He rather preferred his own version of it though.

"That's not being subtle," he reminded her despite the young adolescent part of him giggling in glee and merriment that kept crowing, _She's jealous! She's jealous!_

"Stan's not here," she scowled, teeth bared at him, and Marshall looked skywards so she wouldn't see the grin twitching at his lip. _Danger. Do not prod unless willing to loose a limb._ "I don't have to be subtle outside the office."

He leaned down, his tall and lanky body a head taller then her own full figured one, and massaged the crease between her eyes with one of his fingers. Before she could snap it right off (with her teeth or by a quick pulling back of the appendage, he wasn't sure), he whispered, "I was wrong."

The statement startled and confused her enough to ease the harsh creases in her face and make her look at him questioningly. "What are you talking about, doofus? Wrong about what?"

"You're not an exotic animal," he mused, laughing as she hit him none-too-gently in the gut. "You're a _saber tooth."_

She punched him on the arm and probably would've tried for a good kick too on pure principal, but the witness they were waiting for disembarked the train, the dark-clothed escort right at his side. She shot him a scowl that had him looking between them both – _Do I have to protect the witness from both of you too? – _that Marshall only answered with a grin, showing his whites and reminding himself not to get within grasping range of her until later. _Much_ later.

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Let it not be said, however, that animals _could not adapt._

It was a lie. _A lie that would get you eaten if you believed it_. They learned and evolved from mannerisms _they_ observed about their handlers over time, and the exotic Mary was smarter then your average beast to begin with. She learned.

Oh, _she learned._

Marshall was not your everyday, run of the mill guy. So the occasional eyeing up of her ass by an idiot, while irritating, did not conjure wildly strong jealous fits. Her flirting back gave him a twitch in his eye and the dirty phone talking just made him giggle now until she tried doing some of those things to _him_, just for her own amusement. This, while enjoyable, wasn't his preference seeing as 90% of those instances were outdoors in busy parking lots and exhibitionism, while he was not opposed to it, went against his personal preferences to do _hands-on _foreplay.

Mary knew his limits, but she was stressing them all to brink in the middle of a bar later that night.

Marshall had flashes of _Coyote Ugly_ the minute he walked into the place, complete with the burning liquor on the bar that was like a sea of fire. She was in the middle of it, smirking like Lucifer's mistress incarnate, her jacket discarded as she let loose with the other women behind the bar who indulged her happily.

One more body added into the fun. _And was she fun to look at or what?_

He knew Mary had been a bartender for a time before entering law enforcement – hell, so had his sister and he'd seen some of the stunts she'd pulled. Bartenders in places like these were part-bartender and part-exotic dancer, available and yet very much _off limits._ He'd thought about it for maybe 5 seconds when Mary let that slip earlier before shoving it out of his mind, simply so he didn't have to walk around like a penguin all day. But no, the experience showed as he watched her twirl that bottle of bourbon with her saucy devil's grin.

The image was going to be burned on his retina forever and the steaming look she shot him from across the room confirmed it.

_Damn alley cat learned some more tricks._

"What can I get ya, cowboy?" He flashed back to "Nomi" and the phone sex voice, closing his eyes and shaking his head the slightest bit under his cowboy hat. After hearing that voice so many times in her numerous phone sex inquiries during investigations, that falsetto voice just made him want to chuckle. _And then there was that look…_

He could just hear the throaty laughter now.

With a practiced ease, she eyed him from head to tow in three swift jerks of her eye that made him smile for real. It was the same look he gave every now and then just to rile her a bit. _A side of beef I just might buy…if you're worth it._

"I could think of a few things," he drawled slowly, voice loaded with meaning. "Let's start with the answer to why we're here in the first place."

Marshall knew why they were here, of course. It was an unofficial check-up on one of their older witnesses who now owned the place and was grinning madly as she coaxed Mary behind the bar to help serve a few drinks and flirt unashamedly like any good female bartender could. She was off duty and had partly come to loosen up after a particularly stressful week.

Then his brain had to go and implode into a million brightly colored fireworks.

The music kicked up and 5 sets of truly very _lovely_ legs got up onto the bar with a **'bang' – **_Mary's included_. He actually got a face full of well-toned legs (even if Mary was still in her work clothes she still had great legs to look at) as they danced on top of the well-worked wood of the bar, cheers and jeers and whistles making him deaf. His eyes merely followed Mary, gyrating in a way that would make any man blush and forced him to close his eyes for a moment out of necessity. _Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Winston Churchill, Gandhi…_ It helped, and when he had his head on straight again, Marshall chanced opening them back up again.

Nope. Bad. Bad, bad, _bad_…and holy mother of-_when did they bring out the water pitchers?_

As if he needed one more reason to stare and gawk at her like a quick-triggered pubescent virgin.

He did have to smile as he toasted her silently with his beer bottle though, unashamedly watching her let loose and actually have _fun_. The she-cat liked to play hard and this sort of revelry was right up her proverbial alley. He imagined she'd done something similar during her college years. It was actually quite easy to imagine, and just thinking about a younger, even feistier Mary up on top of a bar flirting her heart out in tight jeans and a second-skin-top made his inner adolescent giddy as a primary school kid and giggle cheerfully, _'Daddy warned me about girls like you~'_

When she finally jumped down, shirt soaking wet and clinging to every deliciously round curve he'd known intimately these past 3 months now, he circled a hand around her waist to pull her closer in the same instant that he settled his jacket around her shoulders so she wouldn't get sick. _Because an animal still needs watching after even if it can eat your heart out in a second._

It was rather silly trying to seduce him – Marshall was unashamedly easy to seduce if his heart was in it. Mary need only crook her finger and he followed, like an obedient puppy…albeit a happy one. He was not ashamed to admit this and told this to any curious individual who bothered to ask. But Mary with a lover was a Mary with no limits – she flirted, seduced, and _drove him crazy_ at her leisure.

Tonight she merely wanted to drive him insane.

She fisted his shirt in an iron grip and dragged him down – he was _too damn tall –_ to her level so she could tease his lips, barely brushing them with her own. He groaned, because that was what she was aiming for and he really _was_ frustrated, brought to new levels made even worse by the little shimmy she did with her breasts against his chest that made him want to forget all caution and sanity and _cave-man-haul her home._

She'd shoot him for it, but at least he'd die happy.

If he were a smart man (which he was) he would run the other way. But love was a harsh bitch of a mistress, and even smart men could not escape it once caught.

But Marshall was smart. The key was in simply accepting this fact and running with it, because while he knew for damn certain she'd be the death of him, those looks _and that damn lick of her lips gesture that drove him mad _promised he'd at least die a happy man. But it was the glint in her eyes, visible only when the light reflected off them a certain way, that ultimately did him in. It was the look that told him so many wonderful things in a single word.

_Mine._

_Getting intimately involved with your exotic animal is, without a doubt, a foolish move. They are liable to take more then they can give and can rip your heart to pieces quicker then you can blink. You might ask how this is so very different from falling in with any other normal woman, but it is. It really, REALLY is._

_Do you die an old and cantankerous man with a frown on your face? Or do you die an old, horny little man with a grin on his face and grandchildren who are always embarrassed by you during the family picnics?_

_Look at me for example._

_I'm __**still**__ smiling._

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A/N: Oh, wow. I'm SO happy to see such a response! Made me so giddy to see them all and somewhat appreciated. Here's Chapter 2, completed and plotless as always. And really, how many of you would DIE to see Marshall do the whole cave man lift or Mary take a page out of **_**"Coyote Ugly" **_** to seduce him? I know I would.**

**As always, keep those reviews coming! Feedback is encouraged**

**~SRDempsey**


	3. Part III: Three Steps to Dating

**I'm back again with Part 3! All the feedback just made me so giddy I finished it quicker then anticipated. A little more romance and a little less humor, but it's still there, so I hope you enjoy this next installment!**

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Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Three**

_Three Steps to Dating_

It can be rightfully said that only a really, _REALLY_ foolish Keeper would dare try to acclimate his exotic pet to some of the more mundane things of normal life. Cooking. Movies. Food that didn't actually go 'Bah', 'Moo', or 'Oink' when they bit into it. The wildly untamed and exotic animals living among civilized people, while capable of blending in, _always, always, ALWAYS_ operated to a beat that was uniquely their own. It is the Keeper's job, thusly, to serve as a liaison between it and the world, ensuring that no mistakes occurred that left one (or both) parties bloody and _more then a little broken._ If adaption is not possible, then it is their duty to ensure the exotic animals are kept safe, and that contact with people is kept _to an absolute minimum._

His Mary – exotic, beautiful, and _carnal_ Mary went both ways. It made things a little difficult, since he'd long ago concluded that _dating_ Mary, as opposed to being her _lover_, had to be done with caution and, if at all possible, _without her ever realizing they were dating in the first place._ The word dating was liable to send his she-cat running for the hills, hissing and roaring the entire way because of the perceived bars of entrapment coming towards her ominously. While Marshall was secure in the fact that she loved him, _even if she never said it, _he had no illusions about what this fact did and did not let him get away with.

He _could_ piss her off, because he was Marshall Mann with the never ending trivia and she would still love him, because she was the only one he _really_ wanted to impart a piece of his knowledge to anyway and she knew it. He _could_ stay with her after the sex, because he was _not_ a stranger and she _did_ trust him. He could safely snuggle with her a little, _something that his Mary-cat did not allow anyone else because that would interfere with her shooting anyone that invaded her den, _because she'd seen him nail a suspect from a prone position right between the eyes and with his vision impaired. Never mind that he _always _had her back…

What he could _not_ do was a short list, but a vital one never the less, and definitely the more important of his mental lists. He _could not_ say he loved her…yet. It was too soon and too much and she would spook, though she at least held onto and accepted this unspoken knowledge with only a slight fuss. She was Mary Shannon – not an imbecile – and he was not exactly trying hard to hide it. He was not allowed to help her financially, because she was independent and _took care of herself_, even if it _was_ on the tip of his tongue whenever Jinx would fall off the wagon after a bad day and drink her way through her money or Brandi would lose her job and both were fairly useless for any sort of stable income.

And he most definitely, under any circumstances, _could not – __**on pain of death – **__romance her._

It was this last rule that had him jumping through hoops, because a big part of the dating _was_ the romancing of the lady _and he would not just skip that pivotal step in their relationship._ And dating was a prerequisite of sorts to the rest of the stuff he wanted with her. So he had to be creative, like a photographer in the plains, sliding noiselessly downwind to try and get a picture of this beautifully lethal and exotic creature that would disappear like smoke if she so much as caught wind of his presence.

The challenge was there, like something stuck in his teeth that agitated him and _wouldn't let go_, and Marshall liked games. He liked games a lot. So did Mary, and she didn't even know she was playing in this one.

His first attempt was in the office, surrounded by Stan, Eleanor, and quite a few of the boys and girls downstairs whose curiosity got the better of them. Seven cattails stood in a simple vase in the middle of her desk for her to see once she came in that morning, each one a different species of it that had cost him an arm and a leg to procure, and a standard florists card was tucked inside with a cute tiny pink bow at the corner, _just because he knew she hated pink and it would piss her off_.

It was an off-beat version of the _bring your lady flowers _concept and a completely _Marshall _thing for him to do, were it not for the condoms rolled over them in a very blatant phallic display. And the card with a poem inside it even Marshall couldn't read again without blushing.

Mary took one look at them and busted out laughing like a loon for the rest of the day and set them on the corner of her desk, condoms and all, with a grin on her face every time she looked at them. Stan finally made her take them home after a week, but she never managed to stay angry when she got home after that.

Mary framed the poem and kept it on her desk, however, and Marshall didn't miss the looks she sent him from that point on every time she stopped to look at it and read it again.

Those nights always proved to be good. Very, _very_ good.

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He never gave her chocolate, because Mary cleaned out his cupboards of anything sweet on a daily basis, and kept a bottle of chocolate syrup stashed away for 'chocolate milk' of a more personal variety, so why bother? Marshall did, however, concede that he most definitely should do the standard dinner date, except without her knowing it, of course. So he did what any self-respecting man did when confronted by a woman he could not openly date because it made her go 'ick'.

He brought the date to the office.

Marshall toted his homemade dinner with him in an inconspicuous brown bag like take out, even though he'd made it himself all morning, and hid it in the lounge for later in the night. Just to make sure no one got the funny idea of swiping it from the office's fridge, he pointedly warned away every single Officer, Administrative Assistant, and Marshal he could think of, _because only Mary seemed not to get what he was doing._ They all watched _him_ like he was some exotic animal these days, curious and a little out of his mind, but promised to make sure it was still there because seeing their relationship pan out was _just too HILARIOUS to interfere with_, no matter how tasty the food smelled_._

"I'm starving!" Mary finally exclaimed around 6pm, a harassed expression on her face as she glared at the paperwork threatening to drown her like it would magically transform into a pizza. Marshall waited two breaths before he held up the brown bag, retrieved and warmed up by the girls in bookkeeping before they'd left for the night and smuggled up via Eleanor while Mary had disappeared into the bathroom.

With two quick strides, Mary peered into the bag, sniffed, and eyed it skeptically before saying, "It isn't more of that weird French crap you made me try, is it?"

"It's _Foie Gras,_ and no, it is normal food." He handed her the specially prepared steak and potatoes he'd prepared – _because an animal needs its meat, even if it doesn't 'moo' when she bit it – _and uncorked the wine that he knew was her favorite and had been sitting in a bucket full of ice under his desk by his feet _all damn day_ _just for this moment_. "Did you know France is the largest producer of the delicacy and consumes over-"

"Don't need to know," she interrupted, holding up her hand to stop him from rambling. "Just pass the silverware this way and _please_ tell me you have some A1 in that bag of yours, doofus."

He scrunched his face and wrinkled his nose, but tossed the tiny bottle her way without a thought. _"Mon dieu, mademoiselle…"_ He stared at the bottle exaggeratedly and clutched a hand to his heart as she poured the sauce over her meal generously, staring at him pointedly as she did so. Marshall leaned back once, then twice in his chair in a pantomime of being shot with each shake of the bottle before he nearly toppled ass over elbow in truth, earning himself a loud snort from Mary in response.

They ate in a companionable silence, though he kept gazing over when he knew she wasn't paying attention to the see the appreciative smile and inaudible sighs she made as she ate. Garnering a reaction out of Mary over food was a rare thing – _food is food, isn't it? – _and he preened just a little bit in response.

_All those late nights with the Food Network finally paid off._

"Where did you order this food from?" she asked him when they finished, a rather unrefined belch coming from her lips. _Such is her charm_.

"Just a small place in my neighborhood," he grinned, dimple flashing in his right cheek.

Mary nodded absently before looking at her paperwork again with a sneer. "Buy from there more often."

He was already plotting their next meal as he bent down to the remaining half of his own stack, lost in thought as he wondered if he'd get home in time tonight for _Emeril_.

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It was three weeks before Marshall tried anything else, because it was a little more complicated and tricky. The execution part of it was easy enough, but the matter of it being kept secret…well, _that_ was difficult due to the individuals involved.

Meeting the parents, while a seemingly pointless part of things due to his constant presence in Mary's life, was an important thing for him. One day he planned on introducing her to his own…if he could get her that far and the entire Mann family could converge on one spot for more then a day or two. That was the biggest problem with his family, considering they were all involved in the justice system to varying degrees. A FBI Agent, CIA Intelligence Operative, Police Captain, and two Marshal Inspectors – transient occupations that always made them travel constantly. He was grateful they at least remembered to send him cards on his birthday, never mind managing a yearly get together.

Mary's family, on the other hand, was easily accessible. They knew him quite well, considering he'd had his own key to her house for three years now and he'd been an integral part of it for four. As far as he knew, they liked him fine, but they didn't _know_ him…not really. Not like they should. Mary had gone out of her way to keep them separated with a good degree of success. It was designed for protection – his or theirs, he hadn't the faintest of ideas – but it was something Marshall needed to change before he could continue on the road he was walking any farther.

He was just old-fashioned that way.

The problem was that Brandi and Jinx couldn't keep a secret for the life of them. They were chatty drunks and couldn't lie to save themselves to a stranger, let alone Mary. They were submissive lionesses in Mary's pride, following their female queen wherever she went or going wherever she told them to, so to speak. If she demanded an answer, they gave one, always trying to please her to the end.

So what was a guy supposed to do?

Marshall found his answer in the prime opportunity presented to him in the form of – of all things – Mary's birthday. It put her in an exceedingly foul disposition all day, but he worked his magic and soothed her hackles enough so that he was reasonably sure she wouldn't automatically lunge for his jugular when he implemented, "Operation Family Approval". He did not worry about garnering the typical best friend's OK because it would be strange for him to seek the stamp of approval from _himself._

He was cracked, but not _that_ cracked.

"Do we have to?" she groaned, looking at him like it was his fault she was facing yet another non-surprise party.

"You know they're all sloshing drunk around the pool waiting for you," he pointed out, smiling when she glared at him harder before slumping in defeat.

"_Fine._ But this time you better put out for that drink, doofus."

Marshall merely grinned indulgently, _like any good Keeper knew to do when faced by that look._ "That's my girl."

The party, like the one from the year prior, wasn't exceedingly awful. It was mostly made up of cops, neighbors, and friends who just wanted any good excuse to drink. Jinx was sipping the sparkling cider, because she was _really_ trying to stay on the wagon with this one, laughing with Stan and Eleanor over something she and the other woman were bonding over. Brandi, on the other hand, was surrounded by a gaggle of drunk off-duty cops, an unamused expression on Peter's face.

"Hey, it's the happy couple," Bobby D toasted when he saw them, earning himself a single finger flipped in his direction by Mary. "You picking out rings yet?"

"Oh, jealous of him are you, Dershowitz?" she smirked, eyes twinkling as he gave a small burst of laughter.

"Hell yeah. I'd be a lot better of a cop if I knew his secret to having as much patience as he does." This earned him a sock on the arm, which ended up into a full blown punching match that ended when they both ended up wrestling each other straight into the pool, _because Bobby let loose when he drank and was as bad as Mary when he did so_. He'd unobtrusively removed Mary's badge and gun beforehand and set them inside her house, but the same could not be said for his friend, who surfaced with a curse and held up his soaking wet gun with a scowl.

Normally he held back when surrounded by the other two Shannon females, _because not everyone really understood his unique brand of genius,_ but the whole point to his plan was to let them see who he was for real – the Marshall that Mary 'put up with' on a day to day basis and the one who'd gotten himself under her skin so effectively in less then a month and was still clinging tenaciously to her 4 years later. It was the endless trivia and the sarcasm, and the unabashed childishness in which they picked at each other, like a child with a scab, even if it sometimes hurt or made other people cringe and want to look away

The opportunity was just too good to pass up.

Marshall had no idea if Mary realized that Jinx was looking at him a little harder by the end of the night, or that Brandi had a new kind of smile on her face when she looked at him, but Marshall knew and saw the changes. He knew, and he'd succeeded, and now all he had to do was wait.

"Hey doofus," Mary said out of the blue after making him pay a second time for the drinks he'd had that night, propping herself on her elbow with considering expression. "Next time I see that shrink sniffing around, I'm breaking her kneecaps."

He feigned ignorance. "Does that mean we're dating?"

She made a face, hit him on his arm, and flopped face first into her pillow.

_Translation: You're mine now, bitch. Get used to it._

_The thing about your animals, when you do decide to take that leap into a relationship, is that it is final. You are stuck until they decide to let you go, because God have mercy on you if you should try and be the dumper. You are the dumpee. This is not negotiable. And if they decide to keep you forever, then you sure as hell better be ready for it because they are NOT going to slow down just so you can try and keep up._

_Your exotic animal, no matter what flavor she might be, doesn't need another follower. She needs an EQUAL._

_And only an equal can keep up with her pace._

**

* * *

A/N: I love Marshall. I seriously, completely do. And it took me forever to think of his version of sending Mary flowers. Sigh. Why can't guys like him truly exist?**

**And as for **_salander3's_ **question: Yes, I plan on doing more that will fill the gaps between the chapters. It gives me lots of play room. I have a bunch of them ping-ponging in my head even as I write this.**

**Anyway, tell me what you think and review! You know you wanna. =)**

**~SRDempsey**


	4. Part IV: The Lioness's Den

**Ah…all the reviews for last chapter made me so happy, and some damn near made me blush. THANK YOU! Part 4 is here, because I just got so happy I finished it quicker then usual, and with a little more drama in it. A little more romance and a little less humor again, but still on target, I hope. It's just too much fun writing Marshall…sigh. Words can not convey how much I love that man.**

**I **_**WANT ONE!**_

_**::coughblushclearsthroat::**_

…_**Moving on. Enjoy!**_

_**

* * *

Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Four**

_The Lion(ess)'s Den_

One of _the most terrifying_ things that can happen after the barrier between loving and protecting your exotic creature is that the Keeper should have to leave, putting the animal in charge of itself for any length of time. It could be ten minutes to ten days and the amount of terror a loose animal would instill on the world made one wonder if we shouldn't just leave them loose to prowl the borders when a decrease in illegal immigration was needed.

In short, leaving an animal to its own devices at all is bad. _Very_ bad.

Despite this, 2 months after her birthday, Marshall ended up having to leave his wildcat to her own devices for _two weeks_. He did not much appreciate this, _nor did the world, _considering it was HQ's fault, and by default _Stan's_ as well. Though, to be fair, Stan had warned them. Twice. With _great emphasis_, no less_._

_Do not split up those two Marshals._

HQ just didn't _understand…_the rules concerning fraternization were important, yes, but nothing would or _had_ changed in their professional relationship even though he and Mary were dating exclusively now. She still busted his balls and he still drove her crazy with his random facts, and Stan _still_ looked at them like two misbehaving children he didn't know what to do with. Hell, no one would've known just by looking at them, were it not for the fact that they'd told Stan, because he was their friend and boss and _if anyone could convince HQ that splitting them up was bad it was him._

HQ didn't listen to him, and for a very bad two weeks Marshall was partnered with a transfer from California who'd lost her partner of 9 years in a pass-off gone bad. The _first day_ had been a warning bell, and he'd pointedly told Stan that she was done. Jenny – that was her name – was no longer entirely there and _she was no longer suitable to the field._ Even _he_ agreed – Stan was not oblivious to the zombie-like way the woman was working – but HQ was adamant and convinced they were just whining.

To say Mary was even more livid was an understatement. She _loathed_ newbies and absolutely _hated_ arrogance and her new partner "Max" was both in spades. Marshall did not like the young man at all and briefly wondered if he'd ever been like that. Yes, he'd been confident as a newbie marshal, mostly due to having a US Marshal for a dad and a police lieutenant for a mom, but he'd never done some of the things he caught Max doing to Mary. Interrupting her with witnesses. Correcting things he thought were mistakes. _Talking to her before she finished her morning coffee._

More then once, Marshall had to distract her so she wouldn't murder him.

"_STAN,"_ she growled after a week of it, pacing in agitation like an animal in a cage. Her body was wound up so tight she vibrated, every muscle twitching for release on _something._

Both he and Stan stayed well out of arm's reach as she stalked the length of his office, snarling. He half expected to see fangs protrude from her mouth.

Neither of them had any inclination to be the '_something_' she let loose on.

Mary started articulating and stopped multiple times as she paced, stopping to rearrange her thoughts or words, before she finally growled, frustrated, and threw up her hands, staring at Stan expectantly, "_Do something!"_

"Give it a week," he eventually promised, rubbing his temples because even _he_ wanted her back with Marshall – if for no other reason then to _make her stop snarling at him and bitch at Marshall like normal_. Stan was not ignorant to their rapidly falling success rates, either. While they were managing about 15 or so witnesses a piece, which was normal, as a team they generally garnered twice the norm or more, simply because they worked so well together. It was the reason Stan got away with having fewer teams of Marshals in the office then was usual and _they were feeling the effects of it now, damn it. _The constant state of agitation didn't help either. "I'll speak with HQ."

* * *

HQ was _slow_.

Marshall was too high on morphine to be really clear on why he was mad at the stuffed shirts over in Arlington, VA calling all the shots exactly, but he was lucid enough to remember that it was their fault he was in the hospital with a hole in his chest – _again_ – and multiple fractures in his left leg.

He breathed in and out, softly, because anything deeper _hurt like a poker in his heart_. Vaguely, he was aware of precisely when Mary came dashing down the halls, protective as a lioness but murmuring to him like a frightened cat, _telling him not to die. _He wanted to tell her not to cry, because wild animals like her really shouldn't – it went against nature for exotic creatures like her to cry – but the oxygen mask prevented it and he'd nearly passed out the last time he'd gotten it off of his mouth for even a second.

Moving it away to tell her even that was _probably_ a bad idea, no?

Marshall didn't really hear anything more after that because he was wheeled through the doors where Mary couldn't follow, but the last thing he heard her say, with a voice roaring like an enraged tiger, was, _"STAN! _Someone better tell me what mother-humpin' _HAPPENED!"_

'_That's my girl,'_ he thought with an insane little giggle _because she was an animal and should always be roaring instead of crying _before consciousness faded and the pain disappeared.

* * *

"Great news," Stan said with a tiny bit of derision when he opened his eyes who-knows-how-many-hours later. "I finally convinced them to let you both remain partners. Jenny has resigned and is moving back to her partner's hometown. Ironic, really, since it was her successful relationship with her own partner that convinced them to let me keep you two paired off even though she was the reason the situation got so bad." He shook his head then, like an exasperated father with two unruly children he had no clue what to do with. "Try not to get shot again now. Mary nearly got booted form the hospital for harassing the nurses."

Marshall smiled slightly, but snapped his fingers dejectedly. "Darn. And getting shot is just so much fun." Ignoring Stan's rather exasperated look, he nodded and said, "I'll be sure to put that in my PDA under '_Things not to do for the next decade'_. Anyone get dismembered?"

"Nothing _permanent,"_ Stan stressed, and Marshall cringed almost as soon as he gave a brief laugh. "I'll go find Mary. She's been prowling the halls since you got out of surgery."

It didn't take long for him to find her and even less time for Mary to dart into his room like a cheetah on speed, barely stopping herself before she tripped head first over his bed. Her wheat-blonde hair was disheveled and sticking up in some places, her shirt half tucked in and half not, _and was that a stain on her pants?_

"What am I going to do with you?" he chuckled, wondering how she managed to get powdered sugar on the inside of her thigh and what looked like jelly on the side almost near her butt. Did he want to know? Probably not. But he could guess.

Guessing was better then knowing sometimes, anyway.

"That's my line, doofus," she scowled, glaring at his chest where the bullet had been – barely a hair's width away from his heart and certain fatality. "I leave you for two weeks and you nearly _die_!"

"What can I say? The bright light is just so _pretty_ that I wanted to see it again," he quipped dryly. "Did Stan tell you we finally get to go back to normal?"

"Yeah, right after I kicked the newbie's ass for upsetting one of the witnesses. They're transferring him because he's an imbecile." Pulling up a chair so she could sit at his bedside, her hands drifted along his chest, sending shivers down his spine even if the touch wasn't meant to do so. It was, he'd realized, Mary's version of a cat rubbing against a human's leg. She did it more often whenever he got injured, the last being that debacle with Horst. He'd be out sooner since infection wasn't an issue this time around, but he'd been even closer to death this time and the house cat part of her wanted reassurance.

They sat quietly together long after visiting hours ended, the nurses willing to turn a blind eye so long as she _stayed out of their hair._ At some point she crawled into bed next to him, hand thrown over his waist and the other curled around his neck – the classic possessive gesture he couldn't help smiling at.

It wasn't until the day before he was to be released that she remembered to tell him something important.

"Oh yeah," she put in as an after thought as they watched the TV in his room, "You're moving in with me."

Pause.

"Say that again?" He made a show of cleaning out his ear, which earned him a punch in the arm.

"Just until you heal fully, doofus," she said defensively, that tone of skittishness in her voice that he recognized well. Marshall took no offense _because she was still an untamable beast after all_ and instead smiled as he kissed her on her forehead.

There was finally an upside to getting shot.

* * *

If there was an upside, he was quickly forgetting what it was.

Despite having known Mary and her family for four years, Marshall had never once actually stayed over at the house with all three of them present. He'd crashed once when Jinx was out of town visiting Brandi, who still lived in New Jersey at the time, but beyond that he'd never _actually_ been around to see what the house was like when all three Shannon women were around.

It was interesting to say the least.

He woke up to giggling. This wasn't so bad until his sleep-fogged brain placed the giggle to its owner (Jinx) and then he had a fountain of images _he did not need in his head_ because he was a guy and guys imagined it when they heard it because _that's just what guys do!_ Mary knew he'd heard because he couldn't look at her mother for the rest of the day and snickered at him on her way out to the office. Brandi just looked at him sympathetically and offered him use of her backup earplug set.

Then there was the boredom. His chest wound was healing and the biggest pain in the ass was his leg, which was going to be in a cast up to his knee for 2 weeks at the least, and Marshall hadn't realized what a pain it was to get simple things like a box of cereal from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets until he tried and nearly slipped onto his ass because of the cast. Brandi, who'd seen the display, laughed at him, and he got back at her by chattering her ear off for 45 minutes explaining just how many injuries a year happened in a person's own home.

She didn't laugh at any of his further attempts again.

When he mentioned this problem to Mary later that night _because she was still the Queen of the Den and he only had VISITATION rights_ she looked at him like he was mad and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "So rearrange some things. Your ass better be back in the office in two weeks, doofus, or _I'll_ kill you!"

So the next morning (and still with the earplugs in, because it was Brandi this time with Peter), Marshall gutted every single cabinet and arranged its contents so they actually made sense. Coffee beans by the pot and grinder, seasonings in the cabinet above the stove, cereal in the cabinet next to the fridge…he even called Bobby D, who obligingly brought over a few things from the store after some needling on his part (and a desire to avoid his half-started rant about the benefits of milk) and showed up 20 minutes after six with two bags bursting with food that wouldn't clog his arteries before he turned forty.

"Next time I stop by you'll be fixing the holes in her wall," Bobby told him, staring distastefully at the one nearest the back door.

"I'm only on a visitor's pass to the den. House fixing isn't allowed on that," Marshall grinned.

Bobby snorted at him. "Right…and this is only brown paint on my skin to cover up the pasty white. You've moved in, Mann. You both just don't realize it yet."

* * *

In hindsight, his words probably held some truth to it, because even after the cast was off Marshall was still there, under the guise that he was convinced Mary was holding his cowboy hat pajama's hostage.

"I do not have your cowboy hat pants!" She barely kept a straight face as she said this, a suspicious shine in her narrowed eyes. "I can't believe you even _have_ cowboy hat pants!"

"Cowboy hats and _lassos_," Marshall corrected seriously, _as if it made any difference once so ever._ "And every boy dreams of being a cowboy. Of _course_ I have the pants. I have the gun, don't I?"

"How you managed to pass the psych evaluation is beyond me," she snickered, shaking her head. "You have a real hat, the boots, and _spurs too_. Don't think I haven't seen them hidden in your closet!"

His eyes widened comically, a gasp escaping his mouth. "You have them with my pajama pants too?!"

_CRACK._

Mary couldn't take it anymore. She fell over laughing, tears falling from her eyes, as he leaned on his hand and grinned down at her victoriously. "Can't…take it…_my BRAIN…!_"

Marshall held her until she could breathe again, leaning back against the headboard while she curled into his side like a cat who'd just finished binging on a bowl of cream and was ready to take a nap.

"Stay," she finally sighed out as she closed her eyes, bone-tired and still twitching with the occasional laugh.

Now he was no idiot – Marshall knew what she was saying – but he also did not presume to _completely_ understand how Mary thought. If he did, she'd never surprise him, and she still managed to do that at least once every damn day. "Do you know what you're saying, Mare?"

"Yes, doofus, I'm telling you to live with me," she said dryly, leaning back enough just to shoot him a pointed look.

He grinned and chuckled slightly. "Telling, not asking?"

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes and snort at him. "As if you'd say no?"

"There's an insult in there somewhere…" he mused, giggling again when she hit him in the shoulder. "I'd need more room, you realize. My computer alone would fill up this room and then some. Considering most of the walls are nearly torn to pieces anyway it wouldn't take much to add on some rooms…"

She slapped a hand over his mouth, halting any further babbling and groaned into his side, "So long as you invest in some sound-proofing, _I don't care."_

Now it was his turn to look at her like she was daft while he removed her hand, kissing her palm with a small smile. "Well that just goes without saying." Leaning closer so he could whisper in her ear, Marshall grinned, "Much as it would serve them right, I'd rather your mother and sister _not_ know when you're screaming."

Silence.

"You are _SO_ going to eat your words, Mr. Mann…!"

_When your exotic animal decides to trust you, there is no greater show of commitment then that. If they allow you, even briefly, into their personal den, it is a key moment in their adaption to the world and then some. But do not be fooled, because visitation rights are different from being granted your own space in their den. Best recognize the difference or risk getting yourself kicked all the way back to square one with the tranquilizer gun in one hand and the raw piece of meat in your other. But finding your way into the Lion(ess)'s Den is just half the battle._

_The real battle starts AFTER that._

**

* * *

A/N: Well? Hopefully this pleased all of you as much as it did me as I wrote it. I'm bouncing right off to start Part 5, because I'm finally going to show the Mann clan in the next one! ::snickersmilesmirk::**

**As for the questions I've been getting…I haven't thought much on **_**WHEN**_** Marshall is writing the end paragraphs per se, but certainly when he's older, yes. You'll get a feel for it in the last installment I have planned, which is in…hmm…about 5 more chapters from now? Something like that.**

**As always, PLEASE review! Come on, you know you can do it…**


	5. Part V 1: The She Mann

**OK…wasn't expecting this chapter to grow so…big…but I got to enjoy writing Rachel Mann so much and she kind of…took on a life of her own. So this chapter is going to be split into 2 parts.**

_**

* * *

Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Five, Part 1**

_The She-Mann_

Merging two separate families is scary. If anyone says otherwise, they _lie_. But when each family has its own exotic animal in it, both of whom are relatively dominant in personality, the terror on the poor chump in the middle doubles.

Marshall found himself in the position of chump purely by accident. As in most cases with law enforcement families, his was extremely close and yet physically distant…enough that he never worried over having his privacy invaded without notice because they were all split up across the southwest. His brother was in Nevada, dealing with the countless number of weird cases in Vegas, and his sister was farthest north in Colorado – the only one he knew who got to enjoy anything resembling four seasons. His parents, while living about an hour away, did not bother him unduly. They were enjoying a retirement up in Santa Fe with their horses that wasn't so much a retirement as much as a permanent-consult status that kept them in the game but out of the field and called him maybe once or twice a month just to see how he was doing.

So when his phone rang in that specially-chosen ringer those of his family were designated, he automatically reached over despite it being two in the morning and said like an automated message, "The number you have reached is _out of service._ Good night." He was about to hang up _because the beast was glaring at him like he was stupid_ until a rather irate snarl vibrated out over his phone.

"_Where the blazes are you!? I come all the way down to see an empty house? Marshall!"_

He actually didn't realize what the voice said until he _actually hung up the phone,_ Mary grabbing it with a grumble and tossing it over by their clothes that were scattered everywhere all across the floor before he could pick it up again. It took one minute for his brain to process, then another 30 seconds before he realized who it'd been.

Marshall jack-knifed awake and dived for it just as the ringer rang again and said, wide-awake, _"_What do you _mean_ you came all the way down here? You're in Albuquerque?"

The formerly irate voice he was expecting did not exist, because the voice that answered him had done a one-eighty and sounded close to tears. "You _hung up on me."_

Marshall stared at his phone, as if it could explain just _what the hell was wrong_, before sighing, "It is two am and my brain shut down an hour ago, sis. I moved last month. So what's wrong that you would drive all the way down from Colorado to see me?"

There was _sniffling_, which Marshall hated because he had a bit of old-fashioned male in him that made him feel duty-bound to help a woman in distress, regardless of time. Resigned to this fact, he motioned for Mary to go back to sleep as he hopped into his boxers and tossed on a robe, padding down the steps and into the living room in his moose slippers that Mary was still giving him shit for.

What could he say? They were _comfy_ and his feet hadn't grown since he was eighteen.

"Where did you move?" No longer sounding sad, Rachel Mann sounded more curious then anything now.

_It is too early to deal with her rapid-fire mood swings._

"I live with my girlfriend now." It was on the tip of his tongue to add, _"in her beaten-to-hell-house_," but it would be his luck that his already irate lioness would hear him and take offense. As it was, Marshall kept it brief, because he really did want to go back to bed. And to Mary. But then he imagined his tall and proud little sister close to tears and sighed.

He'd been having the beginnings of such a wonderful sex dream too…Mary…handcuffs…chocolate…

"You mean your partner?" She seemed to perk up notably.

"I see mom is as reliable as ever with spreading good news," he drawled. "Rachel. Problem?"

"Right." Now _she_ sighed, none too happy. "I'm in trouble. I thought you could help me."

"Why not Jared?" Their older brother was the one who fixed things, not him. He was the one who counseled her about what to wear and _if those shoes were too slutty for a second date_ and had been accused of being bi or gay more then once because of it. He was the brother-sister hybrid, as his mother once remarked.

Pointed silence. "This is…the kind of trouble he'd jump the gun about."

That made his brain kick into high gear. Marshall considered this before saying rather dubiously, "You didn't get pregnant by chance, did you?" It was the only thing he could think of that Jared would go over the top for because he had a chronic sister complex, but surely she hadn't…

Silence.

Clock ticking.

_More silence_…

"_Well_." Unsure of what to say, Marshall leaned back on his couch, _because Agent Asshole had trashed Mary's, _head tilted as he stared at a random hole in the wall, assessing. He should probably fix that one first, _because it really was particularly ugly to look at…_ "Who's the lucky man?"

Cough. Mumble. _Sigh._ "My co-worker over in Cyber. Chris."

Marshall stared at his phone for a long moment, fairly certain there was some cosmic joke in there somewhere, but the humor just wasn't sinking in yet. When he managed to find his voice, _because it had abandoned ship for a good 40 seconds there, _he said the only thing he could think of.

"I'll be there to pick you up in 15 minutes."

* * *

Whatever Mary expected to see when she came down into the kitchen in the morning, this wasn't it.

Marshall realized how it must look, but then, she'd seen him in weirder positions then face-down on the kitchen island with a banana peel on top of his head. _A fact she obviously remembered_, because she shrugged, swiped a smudge of chocolate from his cheek as she passed, and licked it off _in a tease of what he MISSED in his dreams last night, damn it_ before going for her morning coffee. She didn't question who the woman _on_ said kitchen island was, nor did she ask why there were random smudges of chocolate all over it. Mary did, however, bend sideways to look at Rachel's face that was being covered by her long hair, eyebrow arched.

"Is this normal?"

He nodded after a moment of thought, mildly vexed that it was, in fact, the truth. Marshall had been accused of being strange more then once, but a child could only be what he grew up with, and things like this had been _common place_ as a kid. He could remember a few instances where he'd woken up under the living room coffee table, as well as a handful of times up in an old wooden wardrobe that had been kept in the attic.

"You're so warped," she chuckled, kissing his cheek as she passed and moving to go grab the morning paper.

_Somehow I feel like I'M the animal and she's the Keeper today,_ he mused, eying his sister's back curiously. _When the hell did she climb up onto the island to sleep?_ The last thing he recalled was her complaining about something – _what was it again? – _and the impromptu purchase of two gallons of ice cream at the local 24 hour grocery because she started getting weepy again.

"So," Mary said when she came back in, dressed and still amused with a smirk on her face, "What's going on and why is your sister sleeping on my kitchen island?"

"I wish I could say why she was sleeping there," Marshall mused, brow furrowing as he racked his brain for the answer. "The 'what's going on?' part is that she's pregnant by her partner." He looked at Mary, hoping he wasn't the only one seeing the cosmic joke in that.

He wasn't disappointed.

It made her antsy, because she shifted from foot to foot for a moment when she looked at Rachel again, but she didn't run at the least. _Progress_. "Damn."

"Pregnant by a partner who doesn't remember sleeping with me in the first place," the morosely miserable voice echoed under her hair.

"You neglected to mention _that _piece of info," he said, incredulous, while Mary looked at her – _again –_ and eyed his sister in the way guys eyed women that were attractive.

Whatever she decided, it obviously didn't make sense to her mind. "Was he drunk off his ass or something?"

_Ah, so that's it._

Rachel busted out into tears, startling his curious cat who took a step back near him, her hand roughly jerking her hair out of her face as, right before their eyes, the tears morphed into extreme vexation in less then a minute. "We were drunk and it was _one night_ and _HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN?_ He doesn't remember and my boss gave me two weeks to straighten, I quote, _whatever the hell is pissing you off,_ but how can I work it through when he doesn't _remember?!_ And then he goes and gets a new girlfriend and I hear them every night because the insulation in my house is so bad and you know how that is and…and…_GAH!"_

It was fortunate, at least, that Mary was too busy trying to process the rapid fire mood-swing she'd just witnessed to react like any animal normally would when faced with a semi-hostile stranger in their territory. Marshall could understand that. It'd been 2 years now since he'd had to actually witness one. They gave him whiplash every time.

_Did I never mention what my family was like to her?_ Now that he thought about it, he couldn't recall ever mentioning to Mary that his sister was absolutely insane or his brother was a lothario with a sister complex or that his parents were still wildly in love despite appearing like they would shoot each other every time the other opened their mouth. They were always swarmed by witness problems or solving the issues surrounding Mary and her own family that the issue of _his _family never came up. And logically, Marshall had known he'd need to introduce them to her at some point, but he'd been hoping it would be less…_this_. And at a time of his choosing, of course, because introducing an animal to another group without preparation was dangerous, dangerous,_ and did he forget to mention DANGEROUS?_

Rachel finally sat up, her once pristine white shirt wrinkled and smudged with chocolate and one of her heels missing as she hopped down off the counter and extended a hand towards Mary, _as if they were two people meeting over tea._ "Hi, I'm Rachel Mann. Sorry for the belated introduction." She sniffed, rubbing her nose with her free hand, and eyed the piece of maraschino cherry she pulled away with curiously. _Where the hell had that come from?_ "Where's your bathroom? I could _really_ use a shower…"

At a loss for words, _because his sister just plain did that to people, _Mary pointed upstairs and said, "Second door on the left. Lock sticks." She waited until she left the room before turning to him, a suspicious sparkle in her eyes. "Is all your family like her?"

Sigh. _Here it comes._ "Pretty much."

"I can't _wait_ to meet them," she laughed, a little too enthusiastic then was comfortable for him _because that could only mean bad, bad, BAD things_, and sat on his lap grinning while he picked at the brown banana that was more _mush_ the banana now. "Nice hat, by the way." It was brown and bound for the compost heap, but Mary set it back on his head anyway and licked the rest of the chocolate smudged on his cheek with her tongue.

A good majority of the fun was on _her_ by the time Brandi stumbled downstairs, yawning with a large stretch before she took in the sight of them and grinned, "Whipped cream works better."

Before Mary could say a word, Marshall shot back, "Doesn't last as long and tastes awful when it's watery." He lifted Mary's hand and licked one of her fingers clean of the gooey mess, _slow enough that her eyes sparked with heat hot enough to burn, _grinning as he looked at his twitching kitty cat _who would never know he thought of her as such EVER _the entire time. "Can't go wrong with chocolate though. Solid, liquid, or the _gooey_ state in between."

The way he said _'gooey'_ was so loaded she nearly laughed, but Mary took one look at her sister _because they had a bad habit of trading sex tips without shame just to drive her nuts and Marshall was the king of crazy_ and said, "Living room, Squish!"

She was still giggling even as she left them to their moment.

"Focus," she demanded, using her US Marshal voice that worked maybe once every ten times she used it on him. "What are you going to do about her?"

"Take her back home," Marshall admitted. "I have some vacation time and things are slow for now. My cases can get covered for a few days so I can be there. She'll need the moral support and a buffer when she tells our brother."

"Do you want me there with you?"

Marshall smiled. "It would be nice. I was hoping to eventually introduce you anyway. Both of my parents are dying to meet you." At her curious look, he chuckled, "Dad's a US Marshal too, remember? I'd say it's safe to bet he took a look at your service record." _The one brimming over with so many complaints and official reprimands it's bound to have piqued his curiosity._

Like Marshall had figured, Stan had no problem with it. Mary didn't even need to ask, because Stan was the boss for a reason, and he said he'd put in her vacation time too before he even opened his mouth, of which there was damn near a year's worth _and HQ thought he was slave driving them_. Of course, when did she ever go anywhere, and if she did, when did he ever _NOT_ go with her?

"It's so nice to have a boss who understands," she laughed when he told her that, packing a single small suitcase.

"Oh, he doesn't," Marshall mused, grinning slightly. "He just knows how we are and gave up arguing with us about a year after we got partnered."

"Even better." More curious, she mused, "How cold is Colorado in November?"

"Not cold enough that you'll freeze to death, but cold enough that you'll feel like it is." This all around unhelpful crack was met by a pillow to his head, which he ducked just as it would've made contact.

Mary let a slow smile creep up her lips, grabbing him by the waistband of his ridiculous pajama bottoms he'd yet to change out of. She kissed him fiercely, all fire and heat as she slid her hand down behind the feeble elastic, his body jerking harshly with her touch and dropping him like a stone to sit on the bed, bringing her with him.

"We should leave before traffic on I-25 gets bad," he pointed out rather vaguely, any attempts at halting her _sinfully bad _hands non existent and his kisses moving closer and closer to her ample breasts.

Mary pushed him so he was on his back, grinning wickedly. "Still leaves half an hour. We can do a _lot_ in just half an hour, _Marshall Mann,_ and it'll be two weeks before I get you to myself again…"

_Wretched, horrible, SINFUL Hellcat. And how in the blazes does she make my own name sound so lewd?_

"Fine." With the fluid grace of a man comfortable with his own body and obviously well-versed in using it to his advantage, he flipped them so she was below him, her eyes wide in surprise and hungry. "But _I_ get to be on top."

_When cornered by two exotic animals, you do not run unless you want one or both to eat you. Role with the punches and go with the flow, always keeping in mind, however, that you are outnumbered and completely at their mercy. Should you survive this, do not let your guard down, because this is just a one on one collision of two dangerous beasts._

_You haven't even gotten to the introduction of your beast to the entire pack yet._

**

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A/N: OK, so she definitely took a life of her own, so I am going to do this in two parts. We'll see the parents and brother next chapter. Maybe the sister will even stop babbling some. Who knows?**

**As always, the feedback makes me positively giddy! You know the drill, because I am an unashamed Review whore. Press the button and make me happy…pretty please with sugar on top? =)**


	6. Part V 2: Five Times the Mann

**I don't know what I'd do without the feedback…it makes me feel so **_**SPECIAL. =) **_**So here's part 2. Enjoy!  
**

* * *

_**Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Five, Part 2**

_Five Times the Mann_

There is no advice to be had when the time to introduce your hellcat to a pack of wolves comes. There are no precautions to do that will help the situation any and there is _no way_ to count on other Keepers to run interference because that was just _suicide_. So as a Keeper, it is your job to simply understand the un-escapable and terrifying truth.

You have to step back and let them clash.

From Marshall's stand point, it wasn't a clash so much as a silent circling of two very dominant predators, though he was admittedly concerned by the fact that the predators in question were his best friend/partner and his mother. He loved them both equally, albeit in differing ways, and it made looking out for his wayward kitty cat all the more troubling.

Rose Mann was by no means a big woman. She was shorter then Mary by two inches and dressed simply in jeans, an old plaid shirt of his dad's, and a cowboy hat to protect her fair skin and complexion. She was a born horsewoman with a long family history of breeding the finest in the southwest, though her years on the force made her bones achy and an old slug that had been unable to be removed gave her pain whenever the weather got bad. She was barely sixty with a liberal amount of gray hair mixed in with her wavy cocoa brown locks…_not that he was stupid enough to say so._ It was like waving a red cloth before a pissed off and hungry bull.

In comparison, Jackson Mann was _very tall_, topping even him by another inch or two. Marshall had his lean and lanky build, but his father was fuller somehow, with powerful arms and rock-hard muscles that generally stayed hidden on his own six foot two frame. He was the picture of some marshal from the olden days, still displaying his star proudly despite officially being retired. He was also as healthy as a mule and twice as ornery _on a good day._

Again, not something he went around announcing as a general rule. His father had no qualms about cuffing people when he felt they deserved it. His children, much as they knew he loved them, were not exempt from this rule. It was always the arms for them, rather then the back of the head for the rest of the world, but they still _hurt._

But he too was a Keeper, his mother the epitome of a wild canine, shoulder length brown hair unkempt under that hat and windblown from the drive. She thrived on freedom and nature, unhappy if denied either, and liable to pounce without a moment's warning. Less obvious and more seemingly domesticated then Mary, but _just as deadly and terrifying when riled._

Marshall watched his expression as his father stared at his wife, a mix of quiet pride and a loud sort of exasperation he knew only _too_ well. He briefly wondered if that would be him five or ten years from now, and the idea was both tiring and heart-warming to consider.

_But that's a long ways to go from now yet. _He stared, balefully, at his sister's gorgeous mountain home, said woman inside with Jared who'd arrived an hour earlier. She was breaking the news to him privately because their older brother was such a neurotic spaz _and who knew how he'd react? _There was a reason the FBI usually just sent him after the bad guys when needed. He didn't sweat the details much at all. And it didn't help that Chris, her erstwhile baby daddy _who was in for a whole lot of pain when he finally got around to talking with him_ lived with her (because of convenience, supposedly) and was therefore within a hundred mile radius of their gun-wielding brother who was not known for his ability for rational thought where Rachel was concerned.

Yeah…It was shaping up to be an interesting two weeks._ And they weren't even at day two yet._

"You must be Mary Shannon," he heard his mother finally say, and Marshall hyper-focused on the two who were leaning back on the balls of their feet, fully prepared to throw down or go at ease in a moment's notice.

"And you have to be…Marshall's mother." Silent. Tense. Waiting.

God, _could they just_ _lunge and get it over with?_

Finally, after a rather tense 2 minutes _that felt like two years_ Mary said, rather bluntly as only she could, "I expected you to be taller."

Thunderous silence descended, and even Jackson moved as if preparing to grab his wife if she decided to lunge. Rose blinked once, then twice _as if she couldn't quite believe her ears_, and just as suddenly laughed, the abrupt noise echoing like a huge clap of thunder in the silence.

"All of my children got the height from their father." Feet shifted, shoulders dropped, and she grinned, a pleased expression on both her face and in her eyes. "Doesn't mean I can't kick all their asses though."

Jackson eased back – Marshall took this cue from him and stuck his hands into his jean pockets, the tension slowly ebbing from his muscles as he watched Mary slowly relax, too. _Safe!_ In his trademark lazy drawl, he grinned, "I got the bruises on my ears to prove it too."

"_**WHAT!"**_

"Oh, Jared's here." His mother's smile didn't falter as she looked towards the house where his brother's voice had echoed. If anything, it got bigger. "It's been two or three years now since my babies all came together. What's the occasion?" She looked at _him_ expectantly, _because no one ever knew things better then he did,_ and Marshall briefly wondered if he would need the handcuffs in his suitcase to keep people from strangling someone. He'd meant to use them later with Mary, obviously, but…Sigh.

'_I love my family,'_ he thought as he looked into the grayish-blue sky, _'but they really are a pain in the ass sometimes.'_ Glancing sidelong at his hellcat, who was smiling in conversation with his father over the benefits of different Glock models – _figured –_ he mused, _'She'll fit right on in.'_

"I think I'd best let Rachel explain the reason for this little impromptu gathering." Marshall smiled his most charming smile and offered his arm to his mother, who took it with a chuckle both fond and a little exasperated.

They led them to the huge living room, a neutral-toned room full of rich woods and a stone and marble fireplace that had been lit and was radiating a warmth that he and Mary bee-lined for, their sighs coming out nearly in unison.

They only half listened to the conversation of his family around them, instead enjoying the rather picturesque view through the windows that made up an entire wall. Snow was beginning to fall, lightly at first and covering the vivid green grass in the lightest of layers that made the ground seem to almost glow as daylight faded.

Mary, on the other hand, had her attention drifting to his pack of a family. She lingered on Jared like many did, though he imagined it was for a reason completely different then usual.

"He looks like you on steroids," she murmured to him, and Marshall smiled slightly.

"We joke that he ate all the meat when we were kids and I got all the vegetables, so that's why I'm a string bean and he's a beefcake."

Mary couldn't hold the laughter – it poured out of her like a raging river, unable to be stopped until it ran its course.

"Beefcake," he pointed out, by way of explanation, and they all had that knowing expression. Even Jared stopped scowling at the floor long enough to grin.

"Can't help if I got the better genes, bro."

"Not your fault," Marshall agreed serenely, fixing him with a grin that made Mary's snickers start up all over again. "Not my fault I got all the brains either."

Silence. "Are you calling me stupid, brat?!"

Twinkle. Snicker. Snort. "If the shoe fits…"

They were on the floor, rolling around like they were kids and throwing punches that would definitely leave at least one bruise in the morning, but it lightened the atmosphere enough that he noticed Rachel stop tweaking enough to get out what it was she needed to say.

"I'm pregnant."

Several things happened at once following her rather abrupt announcement. Later, Mary would inform him that it only took a minute for it all to play out, but Marshall could swear it lasted longer.

Jared froze, back to scowling.

The punch Marshall threw hit its mark, connecting solidly with his brother's eye because he froze so abruptly.

Rose squealed – a high, glass-shattering sound that no one was really surprised over.

Jackson plopped, rather unceremoniously, down onto the couch with an unreadable look on his face that made all of them a little nervous.

And Chris Weller, CIA cyber geek and unsuspecting baby daddy of his sister's child, came home just in time to hear the tail end of it and said from the doorway, a confused smile on his face, "Who's pregnant?"

* * *

"He's got a mean left hook."

Marshall groaned, a bag of frozen peas over his eye that was going to match his brother's by morning, and glared at Mary who was way too amused with the entire situation. "You finally get why we don't converge onto one spot often? It's like this _every time_. Last time we had to bail Rachel out of jail, my father was in a cast, and Jared had to wear an eye patch by the end of it. My mother was getting gray hair by the time she was _thirty-five._"

"You're almost thirty-five," Mary chose to point out, earning another groan. He shut his eyes, deciding it was a lost cause, and figured Jared had _'talked'_ to Chris enough for the both of them. He didn't need to add his own into it. The black eye, fat lip, and bruise on his arm pretty much covered it.

"Poor baby," she whispered in a tone that made him snort, sliding into bed beside him and holding him loosely around his waist. "If it helps, I _love_ your family."

"I knew you'd fit in with them perfectly." He eyed the gun she'd twisted from Jared's hand after he'd went berserk on the cyber geek amusedly. "His head is going to throb from that hit you gave him, by the way. I know he's got a hard head, but gun butts tend to be hard_er._"

She snorted, not the least bit remorseful. _That's my girl._ "No one gets to give you a shiner but _me_."

"Too late." The shiner in question felt like a nail in his eye, but other then that just having her there helped distract him from it. "We still have twelve whole days of insanity left too."

* * *

Twelve days, Marshall soon realized, could go by _very quick_, though sometimes it didn't feel quick enough.

On Day 3, they spent the day ogling his sister's house, because it was _huge_ and convinced him that retiring to the mountains wasn't such a bad idea…if he weren't a cowboy at heart. Mary thought he was an idiot and told him so. Marshall just laughed and pushed her into a snow drift.

They went out to town on Day 6 because Mary couldn't take it anymore, though the shiner was still an ugly purple-blue thing. Mary offered him her shades since his had gotten broken in the scuffle to keep his brother from pummeling their future-niece/nephew's daddy. He opted for a pirate patch instead and grinned the entire time they walked around town until Mary's side hurt from laughing too much and threatened to unman him if he didn't stop randomly bursting out into a wretched Jack Sparrow impersonation – drunken walk included.

On Day 8 they all went into Denver – baby-daddy included – and watched Rose Mann harass and haggle with every baby store in the city. No one was surprised that Marshall joined her, determined to see that his first niece/nephew have the very best _at the very best price_, while the rest of them pretended they did not know the two lunatics arguing over a crib and the benefits of different types of wood. No one had pity for the salesman who was way too far out of his league at all.

Mary nearly shot his brother on Day 9 because they went out to eat with his siblings and Jared got drunk enough that he hit on her. Marshall was used to it, _Mary being as gorgeous and sexy as she was,_ though he nearly killed him when he got too touchy. _Sylvio's_ blacklisted them by the end of the night, and he was down a few thousand because of the broken table and silverware they left in their wake that he ended up paying for.

It was Day 11, the day before they were to go back home to Albuquerque, that disaster struck and Marshall figured he would have a coronary despite being about 20 years too young to have one yet.

"Girl time!" his mother practically sang five seconds after throwing open the door of the guest room Rachel had given them with a bang, undeterred by the two Glocks she found herself faced with as she beamed at them _like nothing was strange about guns being leveled into her face at all._ "Come on, Mary, I'd like to get to know my future daughter-in-law more and I've had just about enough of the men for a while." If Mary was bothered by the daughter-in-law reference at all, she hid it expertly. Marshall made his sleep-fogged mind focus on her statement instead.

English translation…the she-wolf was pissed at her keeper and dragging the other females with her.

As a whole, being around volatile females made _Mary_ more volatile – something Marshall did not particularly favor simply because it usually meant bad things for the world. Which is why he found himself trailing them in his rental car and throwing every resourceful skill he possessed from over a decade in law enforcement to _making sure his exotic animal didn't kill anybody._

He browsed at a distance inside everything from a small baby store to Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood – no easy task considering he was six foot two and stood out like a sore thumb in a lingerie store. But he wasn't a WITSEC Marshal for nothing. He ignored the strange looks he got from the shopping women and politely inquired about some lingerie he was sure Mary would never wear for him in a million years _but a guy could dream and he liked dreaming big._

Marshall did not see _what_ Mary bought from the latter store, per se, but his curiosity certainly got piqued due to Rachel's hysterical laughter when Mary opened her bag to let her see it.

_Hmm…interesting. Must research further._

Spying when they stopped for lunch was harder because there were no partitions tall enough to ever block him from view completely and Mary constantly let her gaze roam when she ate since paranoia came with their job description and never really turned _off_. Marshall was actually relieved when one of his younger witnesses called – just to talk, because he was 16 years old, anti-social hacker in the making who liked him – though it was short lived when he actually lost them for a good hour and a half. He found them again not too far away getting escorted out of a movie store for being too unruly, and by the time they stopped in front of the local strip joint he conceded that there wasn't much trouble his hellcat could get into there. Certainly not. Right?

He imagined her kneeing a dancer trying to give her a lap dance as a random part of his routine and grimaced.

Crap.

* * *

"How was your vacation?"

_I had to lurk in lingerie stores like a pervert and then flash my badge at a strip joint because they wouldn't let me in otherwise just so I could suffer watching steroid-popping juveniles shake their asses from a catwalk and make sure Mary didn't unman any of them for doing their job._ Out loud, of course, Marshall just smiled like normal at Eleanor and said, "Great! Did you know that one of the oldest ski resorts…"

"We brought gifts!" Mary interrupted, stuffing her donut into his mouth. He shot her a look that she cheerfully ignored. "Where's Stan?"

Eleanor eyed the keychain with a wry look (she should've known Mary would stick with the tried and true types of souvenirs) and Stan made the properly appreciative noises of his Denver, CO pen so she and Eleanor wouldn't start sniping at each other.

Marshall was just relieved to be back home and family free for at least the next six months.

"Glad to be home?" his she-cat asked once they were in his dark blue Expedition and on their way to the first witness check-up of their day.

"Yes." Chaos would come in the form of his niece or nephew in about six months, but that sort of chaos he didn't mind. It was the good kind. "They loved you."

"Your mom is planning our wedding," Mary joked, and he had to tighten his grip on the steering wheel so he didn't drive them into a ditch by mistake.

"Bothered by that much?"

Deviltry shone in her eyes as she looked at him sideways. _Hello_. "I was thinking more along the lines of jumpstarting on the honeymoon." She leaned over to kiss him, a fleeting tease and preview of tonight.

He leered at her sideways with a chuckle. "As long as you bring that new lingerie you bought with you."

Marshall realized his mistake about the same moment she did, her lusty look falling into one of incredulous disbelief.

"How the _hell_ did you know about that?"

_The merging of two different packs/prides is a major achievement. This should not let you lull into a false sense of security, however, though half your battle is already won. You are only half way there to the end goal, which means there is still a 50% chance you can get chucked right back to square one._

_Thus, the constant vigilance must persist._

**

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A/N: Marshall' brother is such an idiot, but alas, every family has to have one. I may write a separate story detailing their entire trip to Denver one day, but I unfortunately lack inspiration for **_**that**_** particular idea as of yet. I have too many ideas for my next story after this completes. Presuming I stay on course, there are 3-4 more left.**

**Love it? Hate it? Think I should go back to hiding under a rock? You know I love the feedback…REVIEW! =)**


	7. Part VI: Finally the Bride

**Took a little longer this time, but hopefully this won't disappoint. Enjoy!**

_**

* * *

Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Six**

_Finally the Bride_

When taking steps to the more permanent vow of loyalty to your exotic animal, you must do so with caution because timing really _is_ everything. You must gather every bit of information you know about your beast and decide, after much deliberation, just what the best way to pop the infamous question is _or risk losing a limb in the ensuing ire_.

Marshall considered himself fortunate that Mary was different – she _knew_ he would propose because he'd told _or warned some would argue_ her so the night of his 35th birthday in the lovely post-coital afterglow of mind-blowing sex. With chocolate syrup. He may have been not-in-his-head at the moment, but the sentiment was true enough.

"What do you think about getting married?" he asked lightly, as if he were discussing the mundane and trivial things of life.

She tensed, minutely, thought about it, and then relaxed again after a brief contemplation. "I try _not_ to think about it."

"We could have pie instead of cake," he grinned, and Mary pinched him hard enough that he yelped in truth.

"Idiot." She didn't move from where her face was planted into her pillow. "This doesn't have anything to do with your sister not marrying the cyber geek, does it?"

"Of course not." Marshall clutched his heart dramatically, only mildly insulted. His she-cat was grasping, ever cautious to take the next turn and peaking around it instead _very slowly._ "They're not us. They don't love each other beyond the scope of their partnership. Even if it is disappointing for my parents, they'll live."

She didn't answer him right away and he didn't push, _because pushing would only agitate the cat further,_ but eventually she simple said, "Doofus. You get to setup everything and so help me god, if it looks like Cinderella puked up in there I'm leaving your ass before it ever gets to the altar."

"You don't have to do anything except find a dress and show up on time," he assured her with a grin he couldn't contain. "Leave _everything_ to me."

* * *

The grin did not last long.

"You're the bride," Bobby D snorted when he came up to visit him a week into the planning and found Marshall buried eye-deep in dress catalogs (for the bridesmaids) and sample menus and more cake variations to choose from them was truly sane.

"Shut up and help me sift through this," he demanded without looking up, his trademark geniality suspiciously missing.

"Right…and when did I get drafted into this affair?"

"The minute I made you my best man."

Silence descended for a moment as Bobby opened and closed his mouth several times before saying skeptically, "And when was _that?"_

Marshall didn't even blink. "40 seconds ago. I'd have Mary do it, but I'm marrying her so that puts a wrinkle in that plan, though I'm fairly certain she'll get the most embarrassing stripper she can find for my bachelor party, regardless."

"And she's not orchestrating this why…?" He stopped – slapped his head. "Right. Forget I asked. Stupid question."

That was how Mary found them when she came back into the office, Bobby D looking a tad frazzled and cross-eyed and Marshall on the phone arguing with what sounded like a bakery over the quality of products.

"Nice hat, Dershowitz," she snickered, her amusement heightened by the look of absolute irritation he shot her way as if she were responsible for all the misfortune of the world.

Marshall only partly listened to their standard sniping _because this bakery was appallingly misinformed and NOT baking their cake but still needed to be straightened out NOW, _too stressed to be amused properly. No wonder women became bridezillas. _He _was close to going postal. And of course, a wedding planner was out of the question. They'd give Mary the Cinderella-puked-in-this-hall version and she'd bolt, fast, cursing the entire way.

How the big metal ring of fabric swatches – pale to bold satins and taffetas – managed to come to rest on Dershowitz's head like a colorful rainbow was low on the list of things Marshall felt he needed to get sorted out.

* * *

His proposal, like everything else in their partnership and relationship, was as seemingly mundane as every other day and yet somehow still managed to be as crooked as a corkscrew. There was no flashy bended-knee moment or declaration of love despite his temptation for the latter.

It was what Mary wanted.

Eleanor was the one who actually squealed when he opened the box with the fresh-baked pie with homemade whipped cream he'd attempted earlier that day, the simple engagement ring cradled in the center surrounded by the juicy bits of fresh fruits he'd spent _five hours_ cutting until they were just right. Stan was grinning like a proud father while Eleanor awed over it excitedly, admiring the small and practical setting of the diamonds set inside the white-gold band _so it wouldn't get in Mary's way when she worked._

Marshall forked a piece of his _successful_ pie, pretending like he hadn't just popped the very tangible symbol of their upcoming commitment in front of his _very _skittish hellcat.

Stan and Eleanor looked at him as if he were daft, then at Mary who was staring at the band with a sort of hyper-focus that, if he watched her, would make _him_ nervous. It was her last chance to back out, to make everything pause…

…and then she grabbed the band, popped it into her mouth to clean it off, and jammed it on her ring finger without another word except, "Quit hogging the pie!"

He didn't mention it when they got home, nor did he say anything about it in the post-coital afterglow when she was purring like a contented cat filled up on expensive cream, but Marshall took her hand with the ring and kissed the band with a shaky sigh, too deeply relieved to formulate the words to express what he felt clearly.

Even Mary smiled at him for that – just a bit.

* * *

Marshall decided on September 4th for their wedding day, simply because it was a Friday and he knew the numerous cops attending would drink themselves stupid. It also gave him roughly 2 months to pull the wedding together, which meant the guys down in APD didn't have much time to plan their hazing _and everyone knew they would try and do something._

He never mentioned it giving Mary less time to think _and freak herself out _about the wedding either.

The dresses were simple greens and blues to compliment the scenery of the mountains, which is where he decided they would marry. Nothing in a church _because that wasn't for them at all_. It was open and on a plateau overlooking Albuquerque in the Sandia Mountains where they would ride up to it. Nobody could hide up there, either – something the paranoid marshal in him had wanted. Marshall ordered some local flowers to add color, though the greenery in the clearing he'd scouted provided most of it naturally. Their reception would be hosted at a hotel not far from the base of the mountain, complete with an eclectic array of food and music _because one type just didn't accurately fit them, _and cattail centerpieces with condoms rolled over each and every one of them.

He did all this in 6 weeks and spent the other two building and decorating their wedding cake _because no bakery he spoke to was good enough._

No one but Mary and their co-workers understood why he wove two cattails together in an arch over the cowboy-cowgirl figurines he placed at the top _cause they just fit better then a bride/groom anyway_ and she nearly wet her pants laughing once it was done and he let her see it the day before the wedding.

They would when they got to the reception, anyway.

* * *

Her something old was his first Glock that he received when he was a new police officer. Her something borrowed was his marshal's badge, hanging around her neck in the place of pearls or any other impractical piece of jewelry. Her piece of new she said he'd have to see later, a ribald look in her eyes that made him scowl at her, and her something blue were the simple drop earrings she wore, twinkling in the light of the sun and shining the same color as his eyes.

Marshall _did not pass out_, but he did trip in the one step it took to take Mary's arm _who did not need anyone to walk her down an aisle _when she finally joined him at the altar before the priest. Her dress's hem was ripped from getting caught on a cactus during the ride up, his niece was wailing in the background, _and Bobby's phone rang in the middle of his vows_, but none of that mattered at all when she said, 'I do' and the priest finally let him kiss her and make the past three months totally worth it. He did, however, get jerked back to reality by the thousands of empty bullet casings tossed at them in the place of the more traditional rice _and how long did it take for them to find so many?_

"What is it with you and the cattails?!" Mary boomed out with a laugh of pure glee over the boisterous whistles and cheers and jeers of their fellow law enforcement comrades as they entered the reception and she spied the table centerpieces.

Mary blinked a little rapidly when he sang, a cappella, their first song, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar that Dershowitz played for them with a grin the entire time. Marshall knew he would get shit for it when they went back to work after the honeymoon was over, but he didn't care. He was too damn happy to care. And relieved.

God, was he relieved.

She kissed him before he finished holding the last note of the song, but the cheers and applause would've drowned him out anyway so he didn't mind so much. Mary didn't cry, the stubborn cat, but she did pounce on him hard enough to make him fall on his ass, her on top, and trigger more catcalls and whistles then was probably necessary.

Dershowitz toasted them like a dutiful best man, his speech humored and making it feel more like a roast then anything. Brandi's speech actually did make Mary cry, though Marshall subtly tried to hide her face by kissing her cheek when she did. He ignored the somewhat tense stares his way when Raph asked Mary to dance and he let them, knowing that he would be leaving to join a team over in Florida next week and would not be here much longer.

Their cake was met with ooh's and ah's that made him preen and more then one female officer asked him to make theirs when they married. Mary just grinned when he got too inflated from the praise and face planted him into one side of it, to which he returned the favor and then some. They both made a show of licking it off each other's faces, though Marshall _could not_ hide his jump when she stuck her tongue in his ear and chuckled.

The best part of the night, however, was probably the garter toss.

It was the only time in his life Marshall was ever going to go under Mary's skirt in front of all their co-workers and half of the ABQ PD, hands handcuffed behind him so he couldn't cheat. He fell on his face twice because of his height and the awkward angling, making Mary laugh so hard she nearly fell on top of him once, and he earned a good kick from her heels when he called out, "It's _scary_ under here!"

When Marshall finally did emerge, his eyebrow was arched, eying Mary who merely smiled and said simply, "Something new."

"Definitely new," he agreed with a vacant nod and wondered briefly if he'd ever get the image out of his head as they un-cuffed him and he flung the blood red garter behind him into the crowd of drunken officers both single and not.

Mary really did fall over when it landed on the unsuspecting Stan McQueen's balding head.

They did not leave until nearly midnight, the merriment still in full swing even after they mounted the poor bay gelding who was suffering tin cans tied to his tail and strings of condom packets instead of steamers on his mane _because no way was he taking the Probe and a limo would just be excessive_. Marshall rode with Mary the entire 20 minute trip back to her house on the horse where his father was waiting with a horse trailer to take the poor thing to be groomed and, eventually, its proper owner.

"Give me a grandson," was all he said, and with a brief hug he was gone, one of the cattail centerpiece tucked firmly beneath his arm.

"I love your dad," Mary stated, looking at him with a grin as they watched the trailer disappear, "But he's got rocks in his head and blinders over his failing eyes if he thinks I'm having kids yet."

* * *

Anyone foolish enough to think marriage would slow Mary Shannon-Mann down deserved to have their ass kicked.

Normally, he would've protected the world from such a sight, but the first day back into the office he not only found all his drawers glued shut, but Marshall found them completely re-arranged and filled up to the brim with condom packets and every imaginable contraceptive known to man. Thousands of dollars worth of condoms easily, as well as a flogger and what looked like some kind of sex toy that made Mary arch an eyebrow when he held it up for her to see with one finger. It was meant for _him_ to wear, since to his knowledge Mary did not posses anything fitting that particular shape, and he briefly considered going down to visit the local law enforcement himself before discarding it.

He let Mary go for him instead. Marshall reprogrammed her computer so the pornographic screensaver with their heads pasted onto the two bodies would go away…and wiped the hard drive of the near 3GB's worth of pornographic images, all with their faces on them and masterfully photoshopped.

While Mary head-locked the perpetrators downstairs, Marshall created a hacker program and re-worked the photos to have several of the officers faces downstairs instead – some guy on guy, others girl on girl, and some just plain scary using the wedding pictures he had on his computer. An hour and sixteen minutes later when a roar echoed all the way up to where he was kicking back, a self-satisfied grin on his face, Marshall laughed like a lunatic as he imagined the screensaver of pictures popping up onto every single monitor in the ABQ PD, unable to be removed unless they had the specific password.

And Mary – his beautiful, untamed, _lunatic-loving _wife and partner and best friend – shouted for the entire Sunshine building to hear with delighted laughter in her voice, _"That's my Mann!"_

_It is the end…after all is said and done, and your exotic animal is in your arms at the end of the day when you sleep and the first you see in the mornings, there is nothing more for you, as her Keeper, to do but to make her happy._

_Unless, of course, you decide to spawn._

**

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A/N: Sigh. I love Marshall. And as much fun as this series is for me, the next chapter will be LAST. *Hides from the thrown vegetables* I know, I know, but on the upside, I have plenty more stories to tell, including a "When Marshall met Mary" story I will give you a preview of at the end of the next (and final) chapter.**

**So come on, make me happy – let's see if we can tally 100 by the end, huh? =)**

**~SRDempsey**


	8. Part VII: Oh Mother, a Triple Tap!

**Final chapter…I know, so sad. It took a bit because I realized I never watched all of "Jailbait" and I actually lost what little respect I had for Raph by the end. He's an ass and no amount of good guy doing can change the fact that **_**you don't spit in the face of traditions like that because you can't strap on a fucking pair with your mom.**_** Or maybe that's me. I don't know, but…argh. And how the HELL is it that Mary is the bad guy for telling the truth there and actually displaying **_**respect**_** for cultural traditions? WTF? And that was such a bunch of guilt-tripping bull to shove her father in her face on top of that…bah! Yeah, she's got issues, but **_**there is a time and place for that fight and THAT WASN'T IT!**_** Of course, if he doesn't care about the fact that he essentially guilted her into the proposal…well, whatever floats your boat.**

**Anyway, yeah, I got side-tracked for a bit so I apologize for my delay and subsequent rant. Anyway…please enjoy the final installment of "Marshall's Guide" and stay tuned for more from me in the future!**

_**

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Marshall Mann's Guide to Exotic Animals**_

**Everything You Need to Know on How to Keep One**

**Chapter Seven**

_Oh Mother, a Triple Tap!_

Motherhood is a _beautiful_ thing. Nothing is more wondrous then watching a new mother with her children. The same can be said for a wild animal and their cubs, a surprising gentleness and, dare it be said, _vulnerability_ to their personalities.

What is very much forgotten in that warm glow is the raised viciousness such animals are capable of…all in defense of said children.

Marshall did not breach the subject of children until a year and a half of marriage had flown by, allowing his hellcat ample time to adjust to simply being married to someone. She did not cook for him or do his laundry, or cut him any slack once so ever – he, in fact, did all the laundry and cooking because she'd turned his white shirts pink and utterly destroyed half the kitchen in flames the one time she did.

"Just one?" she asked, somewhat skeptically, because ultimately it was going to burden her far more then it did him. It was the one thing Marshall _couldn't_ do for her _and he took it as a sign of luck she hadn't shot him yet for mentioning it._

"It would be nice," he admitted. "I've always wanted a child – at least one to carry on the Mann name. Maybe even the tradition of being a US Marshal if they wanted to."

"You're such a sap," she snorted, but with a smile. "OK. Just for you, doofus."

He eyed the drawer full of condoms from their wedding and post-honeymoon hazing somewhat curious. "What should we do with _those_ then?"

"We'll fill them up with water and washable paint and bring them to the next company picnic for a condom fight," she snickered. "Now why don't we get a head start on this baby-making thing, huh?"

It would figure, Marshall mused, that trying to get pregnant would be a pain in the ass.

Mary was sick a grand total of four times, and after the second false alarm he learned to try _not_ to jump around like a Jack Russell Terrier on speed automatically and wonder _is this it?_ Admittedly, he was still browsing countless baby shops in his spare time instead of playing chess against a 14 year old girl in Kazakhstan, and Stan was starting to give him the stink eye when he kept dawdling for too long, but Marshall figured his witnesses could speak for themselves. They were all healthy, content, and _alive_, which was the very most they could usually hope for some days.

It was a glaringly sunny day with a radio station having some sort of promotion across the street when he heard the struggle as the disc jockey had his mic rudely ripped from him that the news finally came.

"_Hey doofus!"_ she announced for half of Albuquerque to hear, and he and the rest of the office stepped out onto the balcony curiously to see what the hell Mary Shannon-Mann was up to _now_ when she was supposed to holed up at home sick. _"Start thinking of a name!"_

It took three of his fellow marshals to keep him from pitching head first over the balcony when his knees gave out on him, but Marshall didn't need a microphone to let Albuquerque know just how giddy that made him.

Marshall Mann was going to be a daddy.

They weren't smiling a month later, in her fourth going-to-fifth month of pregnancy, however.

Disbelieving, unwilling to hear the doctor correctly, Mary stated, "That ain't funny doc." Even Marshall felt a little green, though it was debatable on whether it was due to the news or the fact that Mary looked ready to murder something. "Say that again."

"Triplets, Mrs. Mann," Doc Holiday said with a bemused expression. "You're having triplets."

Despite her protruding stomach, his hellcat could still run damn fast, _fast enough to nearly catch him once or twice, damn it_ screaming profanities at him and a chair from the waiting room raised over her head the entire time.

* * *

"_**I HATE YOU!"**_

Marshall briefly wondered if the doctors would give _him_ some pain meds, but one look at the harassed doctor made that unlikely. _If we must suffer, so will you. _So he kept talking, as the nurses suggested, since she didn't seem to calm down at all for anyone else and was continually sounding more and more like a demonically possessed woman.

"Do you know many midwives think screaming actually makes the birthing process a lot worse? Many actually suggest grunting or…"

Mary grabbed his ear, the other clutching his now numb hand, and snarled enough that Marshall felt _a tiny bit nervous,_ "Do I look like I care!?" This followed another scream of _"Get it OUT, OUT, OUT!"_ and a push that he was pretty sure finally crushed the bones in his fingers, and then he heard the wailing echo against the walls like a gunshot to his heart.

"It's a boy! Number one is a boy!" Marshall nearly forgot he had two more coming as he raptly watched the nurses usher him away to clean him up, drawn back only by his she-cats _pissed_ snarl.

"I am _shooting your nuts off_ when I get my Glock back, damn it!" she vowed, and he briefly looked up at where Stan was standing, taping the entire thing for them. Considering she'd been out on leave for half a year now, that boded ill for him.

The second came quickly, another boy who cried so loud even Mary found a small amusement in it. She laughed when the third child – an incredibly tiny little girl that Marshall really did cry over when he saw her – impatiently came out right after him not a second later.

"Two boys and a girl," the doc said with a beaming smile, the nurses gathering around with their bundled up children when they cleaned them up. "How do you feel Mrs. Mann?"

"Marshall?" Her voice was soft, gentle even, and understandably tired…which was the only excuse Marshall could think of giving for not realizing what was coming later. She touched his cheek gently, gave him a bit of a smile to soothe his nerves and say _I'm alright, idiot_, and just as fast snarled at him and decked him full on in the face before he could even register it. Marshall went ass over elbow onto the floor, Stan gleefully recording it all _because he could hear the laughter in the galley, damn them_, his nose bleeding and the nurses and doc staring at them both in stunned silence. "If there is ever a next time, doofus, _you're_ birthing them and _see if you don't scream_!"

* * *

Mary never shot his nuts off, though Marshall was positive that she was at least tempted in the weeks following their discharge from the hospital. The eldest they named James, after her father _because she DID have a sentimental streak_ and the other boy Parker because Marshall thought it was a nifty name. Naming their daughter was a little harder, but they finally chose Maya for no other reason then it was the first thing that came into their heads that didn't really suck with the last name 'Mann'.

James _screamed_. Loud and long whenever he felt unhappy _or whenever he damn well felt like it _and it actually took five hours that first time before they could figure out how to calm him down. Ironically enough, it was Stan who inadvertently discovered it when he stopped by with baby presents and to give Mary back her service weapon. James took one look at the Glock and squealed. Mary laughed. Stan sighed.

Marshall just hoped he wouldn't grow up and shoot anyone.

Parker was the quietest (and Mary's favorite by default for this reason), never making noise and scaring the hell out of him more then once when it almost seemed like he wasn't _breathing_. He slept a lot and cooed under attention, though he was also the most curious and was often poking at things he shouldn't. He bumped his head into things constantly once he learned to crawl and was once found trying to shove his finger into an electrical socket.

He had socket plugs in every unused outlet within the hour.

Maya was…different. She cried sometimes, though not nearly as bad as her brother, who she sometimes stared at with a look like he was some foreign alien when he started throwing a fit. She slept in the oddest places, from under the couch with the dust bunnies to against the wall, her legs straight up in the air, and only slept after both her brothers were knocked out at night. She also got this scrunched I'm-gonna-cry look whenever Mary tried putting her to sleep, instead only drifting into her dreams once he told her a story. Mary scowled at him for it. Marshall just grinned.

Mary's temper eased when she finally came back to work full time, the trips left often in the care of his parents (who never minded driving down from Santa Fe nearly every weekend) or with Jinx if Brandi and Peter were available to stay with her. She had a new respect for the single mothers who entered the program, but beyond that he saw nothing unusual. Same, ball busting hellcat he'd always known. Practical. Ruthless. Secretive even more so.

Marshall lived for the other moments though…the ones of watching her play with James and his toy gun that he hugged like a teddy bear at night, or trying to give all three of them a bath at once. She made angry faces while doing it (which Maya laughed at), but she was laughing like a loon with the rest of them and soaked clear through to her underwear.

"They're not so bad…" she admitted one sleepy night when the trips were three months old after setting them down to sleep. "But did you have to get a _triple tap_ all at once? Ever here of pacing yourself, stud?"

"Think of it this way," he chuckled, "Now you won't have to go through labor again. You got it all out of your system in one go."

"I still ought to shoot your nuts off for that," she yawned, stretching like a contented feline. "Fortunately for you, I happen to still like them."

"My nuts thank you," Marshall smirked dryly. "They happen to like you too."

* * *

Neither of them actually heard about the baby betting pool at work until Marshall proclaimed like the proud daddy he was when the trips were 10 months, "Maya said 'Dada!'" and Bobby D, who was present, turned to Stan who groaned while slapping a twenty in his hand and said, "Told you she was the smart one!"

They showed them the pool – of which the _entire building_ seemed to be in – with little coercion and Mary promptly slapped a twenty in front of both men with a sound like gunfire and said, "James is going to be the first to walk."

Marshall just shook his head and went to his desk to do his work.

Their personalities became quite apparent by age 5. James was entirely Mary, all full steam ahead and already prone to repeating the profanities they let slip a few rare times. He was a typical boy, pranking his siblings mercilessly. Parker stayed out of it and was more reserved like Marshall had been, preferring quiet introspection and often spending time under his desk – and legs – with books while Marshall worked on the computer in his study. Maya was a curious blend of them both…usually clinging to his leg to read with her or helping him in the kitchen because she liked food as much as he did, at ease with whatever she was doing, and pranking James right back.

James put a bug in her bed.

Maya stuffed a bug into his mouth.

He dropped an ice cube down her back while she was helping make dinner.

She dumped a bucket of ice water over him while he slept.

He flipped her skirt up at the park so all the kids could see her underwear.

She kneed him between the legs so the kids could watch him cry like a girl.

It was this last instance that he and Mary had to sit them down for a stern talking (once Mary stopped laughing like a lunatic and beaming in pride _Maya knows where to hit!_), though it was apparent to Marshall that it was a rivalry that wasn't about to break. They didn't hit each other anymore at the least, and for that he figured they ought to be grateful since James never got the hint and always instigated it.

Parker, being Parker, kept track of it all on the laptop Marshall gave him for his 7th birthday. He was able to upgrade simple components inside it by his 8th, and a more mental rivalry sprang up between him and his sister who were often found spouting random facts in rapid succession until one of them didn't know anything about the topic – mostly over the dinner table because of tidbits he said about anything.

Mary blamed him for that particular feud every time they started.

They were all smart academically, in their own ways, and followed different after school activities. Parker was a regular Math whiz and worked with technology in true geek-fashion, and James liked History and sports, while Maya liked Science and the martial arts. It was a science project that was the cause of what would later be called '_the defining day'_; a cloudy fall afternoon when the trips were 11 yrs old and the gray in his hair was starting to sprout that Marshall found himself and Mary called into school earlier then scheduled by the principal.

He did not ask why James had the beginning of a shiner on his left eye when they arrived or why Parker was clutching a wrecked laptop like his heart was broken or why Maya had a goose egg on the back of her head and a death grip on her chair.

Mary asked all those questions for them.

"What _happened?!"_

"Please take a seat Mrs. Mann," Principal David Heiman, older and grayer then Marshall recalled him being, said in a calm tone of voice he knew _from experience_ would piss Mary off worse. "You can see why I called you in. It seems the trips instigated a fight in the gymnasium today." He folded his hands in front of him on the old desk peaceably, as if he weren't saying the most ludicrous things either of them had ever heard.

Marshall eyed the laptop in Parker's hands and the goose egg on Maya's head pointedly before speaking. "With all due respect, Principal Heiman, the physical evidence here tells me a different story."

"Oh?" Still calm. Evenly curious tone. "And what might that be?"

Gently, he held up Parker's right hand, mentally wincing right along with him as he bit his lip in pain. It was faint, but the vaguest of bluish tints signaling a bruise were forming. "This would not be the first time Parker had been bullied in this school – a fact we have asked the school to take care of numerous times, might I point out. My son is also attached to his laptop and I'm willing to wager someone picked on him and stepped on it today, given the damage I'm seeing."

Parker just sniffed again but nodded.

He patted his shoulder, letting Mary pick up while he consoled his sensitive child over the loss of his beloved piece of geekdom in a moment only he could truly understand.

"That would of course not settle well with Maya here," Mary mused, sounding reasonable but looking anything but, "who I am sure approached whoever this was and attempted to make them apologize. And knowing my son as I do, he probably told her not to, and she would more then likely turn to demand why not. But bullies don't like people getting between them and their victims. Do they, Marshall?"

"Nope." He grinned. Heiman did not. "Never do. Probably grabbed her arm or something to push her out of their way, yes?"

Mary smiled – _a baring of fangs. _"That's what I thought too…Because she really is too much like you, doofus, only prettier in pink." He sneered. She ignored him with a grin. "But then, she's a regular Karate Kid too, right? What level? _Kyu 4?_ Whichever is right before brown, at any rate." She waved her hand dismissively. "Not the point, however. I'd bet my paycheck she flipped someone though – whoever grabbed or pushed her, maybe – in self-defense. And bullies _never_ have the balls to travel in anything less then a group of three or four, so I think it's good to guess that's where the goose egg eventually came into play, because even she can not fend off that many boys if out-numbered and trying to defend her brother and herself at the same time. And while my children are pain in my asses, they are quite protective of each other." Mary glanced at James then – eyed his knuckles that were suspiciously red looking. "I suppose you felt you just _had_ to defend her or something at this point."

"They hit her on the head with her project!" he exploded, silenced quickly under his parent's simultaneous looks.

Mary tsked, rubbing Maya's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "After all that hard work you did on it? Christ on crutches, I'd be pissed too. It was like the Taj Mahal of science projects."

"Livid." Maya looked away – glared. "They were going to punch me for trying to live up to my last name."

Marshall felt properly disgusted. "Boys worth anything don't hit girls."

"Well they _are_ trash, daddy…"

Heiman coughed at that point, unpleased by the comment but otherwise maintaining his composed face that he'd had on since they arrived. "Be that as it may, I'm afraid I will have to suspend them all for a month. We simply can not allow such violence in our halls."

Mary did not like this. Marshall knew it even before he saw her hackles raise, bristling like a protective mama cat, but he reached over to place a gentle, calming hand on her leg. "Mary." One word – her name – and her indignant gaze zeroed in on him.

Satisfied he would not have to bail her out of jail for mauling a principal just yet, Marshall focused on Principal Heiman who looked way-too-smug then the situation warranted. "That is fine. They were in a fight, after all." He silenced all three trips with a look before they could argue the point. "I would like to know what the school plans on doing as punishment for the other children, and what are you going to do to prevent this from occurring again?" He made no change in his laid-back position, but the tone in his voice made his words clear enough. _Are you going to get off your ass you festering puss-drool and fix the problem?_

Marshall could not clearly recall what happened after that, seeing as the principal managed to insinuate _they_ were at fault for having their children exposed to such a violent profession, and no amount of pleading on his part could stop his hell cat from tearing into him a second after it left his mouth. It was all a whirlwind of excitement, and glimpses of the little punks who looked worse then his kids glaring as their parents took them out of the office by their ears.

Mary got a good look at them too as they were escorted out, the trips running ahead to the car, and sneered in pleased feral pleasure. "Damn brats."

Marshall had a slightly different take on things. "Only our children could successfully get kicked out of two schools in less then a year for things that they didn't even start. Bobby's making a killing in the pool." Slightly perturbed, he mused, "You don't suppose we're really raising them wrong, do you?"

Predictably, she smacked him across the back of his head as soon as he said it. "Doofus. They're being raised fine. It's the rest of the world that's fucked up." She pillaged the keys from his jean pockets, grinning. "Now let's go. I'm starving and Maya's ice is melting!"

_Motherhood is the LAST step. There really is no more after that and so long as you keep your exotic animal happy, you have a good chance at living a long and exciting life. Because nothing is dull when your beast is by your side, the unspoken knowledge that they'll rip your heart out and feed your dick to the leeches if you ever step out of them drifting in the space between you and that ever visible dark precipice in a silent – and un-needed – warning._

_You're MINE, Bitch._

**

* * *

...Several Years Later…**

The clear Albuquerque sky was dark and twinkling with stars when the gentle click of their home's front door unlatched, only the soft light of a single lamp next to his chair illuminating the kitchen. "What are you doing up still, dad?"

Marshall smiled; the crow's feet in the corners of his eyes were more pronounced and his hair more gray then brown as he tucked the plain leather-bound journal on his lap. His Marshal's badge and service weapon lay easily on the side-table on his right, watching as his little girl came in from her first away mission as a member of the New Mexico Marshal's Southwest Fugitive Task Force. Her badge sparkled, still new and shiny, against her hip, and he remembered a time his own was just as brand new with fondness.

Which is why he tried not to fuss unduly about her left arm that hung limply in a sling.

"I'm being an old fool," he chuckled. Maya, now 24, a second grade black belt, and natural sharp-shooter, huffed at him but otherwise simply sat on the floor by his leg, just like she would when she was four. "Your brothers, I feel inclined to point out, however, were up right along with me until an hour ago."

"You didn't have to." She tried to sound annoyed – _Oh, Mary, she really is like you –_ but her smile gave her away. "Mom's probably in your room, awake and glaring at a wall."

"She'll understand," he mused. "And I certainly had to. A wolf always worries when his pup goes out on a hunt alone."

"Are you _ever_ going to explain to me where that animal analogy first started? Uncle Bobby laughs whenever I ask him about it."

Marshall looked at his journal – filled with notes and observations he'd had ever since he was fourteen – and considered it. Remembered it all; from his first date to his first meeting with Mary to their wedding and the birth of his children. She was certainly a lot like him and would understand it just as well as Parker, who he'd let see it when he was 16 and just discovering girls, but was also_ very much like her mother too._

Marshall smiled at the book in his hands slightly.

"Not on your life."

**

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A/N: It's done! Kudos to **_aullberg_ **for managing to influence me into trips instead of the twins I'd originally thought of. I like them. I may even have them appear in some future fic. And THANK YOU for all the reviews. It broke 100 before the final even came out!**

**As a teaser like I promised, here's the first few paragraphs from the story I have in progress – my "When Mary first met Marshall" version. Thank you all who read "Marshall's Guide" and I hope you continue reading my stuff and inspiring me in the future.**

**~SRDempsey~**

_**

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Untitled Preview**_

The first time he worked with U.S. Marshal Mary Shannon, she shot him.

Marshall Mann, Senior WITSEC Inspector and US Marshal…and all around good guy _in a quirky computer nerd kind of way_, was very popular among the officials who worked with him daily in the Albuquerque branch. He could tell you the boiling point of mercury or the exact placement of the mole on President George Washington's backside without batting an eyelash, his head a jumble of random facts and tidbits that were both useless but sometimes handy.

It was a month before his birthday when she arrived, all fire and brimstone with a gaze that could petrify on sight and a hand that many suspected would be trigger happy. Stan McQueen, Chief WITSEC Inspector and the Albuquerque branch's unassuming and mild-mannered boss, knew she would be trouble the minute she stepped through the wire gates and saw fit to assign her to his most responsible and subsequently mild-mannered team of inspectors for her probationary month in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, they would rub off on her.

Ten years later, despite the multitude of headaches, Stan would still insist it was the best decision he ever made despite all the stress that made him bald prematurely and the fact that she shot his best marshal by accident on her first day in the field.


End file.
